On April sixteenth, 2025, the Trump administration carried out a focused assault on offshore wind within the US.
The Bureau of Ocean Power administration (BOEM) issued a proper and meticulously worded order to Norwegian power agency Equinor’s Empire Wind 1 scheme – an 810MW wind farm offshore Lengthy Island, New York – demanding an instantaneous cease of building, citing issues from the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in regards to the environmental analyses for that undertaking.
The administration’s assault on offshore wind usually isn’t a surprise, however attacking a totally permitted and totally financed undertaking within the early phases of bodily building, that can present sufficient electrical energy to provide 500,000 properties in New York Metropolis, is stunning.
I had anticipated a halt in conducting lease actions and slowing down the allowing course of, which might add a layer of value or discourage builders from beginning allowing new initiatives.
BOEM invoked its appreciable authority beneath the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a cornerstone of federal offshore useful resource administration, which grants BOEM appreciable oversight and the facility to make sure compliance all through the lifecycle of offshore power initiatives.
Federal intervention to halt work on initiatives which have already undergone and efficiently accomplished the rigorous federal allowing course of is uncommon.
Traditionally, such actions have sometimes been reserved for conditions the place federal businesses assert particular violations of the phrases and situations of these beforehand granted approvals, reasonably than a elementary reconsideration or reversal of the approvals themselves.
One other unhappy a part of this assault is the sign it’s sending to the rising offshore wind provide chain within the US, which the order is actually killing off.
With the danger of finalising offshore wind initiatives now having risen dramatically within the US, you’ll be loopy to construct an offshore wind associated manufacturing facility within the US to provide towers, blades, cables, generators, and many others.
The hundreds of latest jobs and billions of {dollars} in investments we’re shedding out on appear very counter to what the Trump administration desires to attain with, for instance, its newest tariff stunt.
Equinor has 60 days from the date of the letter to attraction the choice.
On the identical time, former head of NATO and now Norwegian finance minister Jens Stoltenberg, along with Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre met with Trump on April twenty fourth, 2025.
The day earlier than the assembly, Stoltenberg met with Trump’s financial advisor, Kevin Hassett, director of the Nationwide Financial Council, about Empire Wind 1.
Let’s see if political strain will help or whether or not it may be solved as a part of tariff negotiations with Norway (because the Norwegian State owns 67% of Equinor).
- Dr. Kristoffer Svendsen is Assistant Dean of the Power Legislation Programme at The George Washington College Legislation Faculty
Additional Studying:
- Funding secured for $5bn wind farm off coast of New York Metropolis
- Trump halts new offshore wind schemes on first day
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